Sunday, July 23, 2006

viva italia part III : assisi.

day 8, we made our way to assisi, in the region of umbria. from the train station, it was a 4km bus ride up to the picturesque hilltop town.

we had a hard time finding our hotel. (the only hotel we stayed in on our trip, and it wasn't very expensive too!) if you've noticed, the entire town is built out of the same shade of brick!

walked around, had a look at some of the churches around our hotel.

st. clare and st. francis of assisi.

dinner was at this very nice, very classy restaurant. here i am having my salad rather unglam-ly.

the main piazza had a nice glow at night.

we sat there in our pyjamas and enjoyed the cool breeze while listening to the strains of the guitar from a student group nearby.

'home' was so beautiful, we felt like we didn't want to leave.

the next morning, we climbed the hill to visit the fortress and to get a nice view of the umbrian region.

this looked like some rich man's abode. or i might be wrong.

yay, we already loved assisi!

this was an interesting fence... it was almost entirely covered with wads of chewing gum.

this child was kicking the football around the same spot for the whole day! we met him in the morning, and then in the late afternoon again. a future national player, maybe?

the basilica of st. francis.

a funny sign outside the basilica! it turned out to be quite true.

pretty architecture inside the church.

the baroque (i think?) interiors of another church.

another church... i liked this one. i think it was the basilica of st. peter, and i remember there was pin drop silence inside. its dome had an interesting design and feel to it.

we stopped for our almost-daily gelato fix.

we relaxed at the gorgeous look-out point, when the sun was just beginning to set.

we were going to climb up the hill to watch the sunset when we realised it was the day of the town's festival del voto (or something like that). it was some kind of religious celebration, we couldn't figure out exactly what because it was in italian. many officials, monks and nuns were gathered in the main piazza.

nuns gathering in front of the glorious sunset.

after the festival, we ended the day by enjoying a glass of iced coffee at a pretty little cafe. next, we moved on to the artsy city of florence, the capital of tuscany.